Quote:
Originally Posted by WhatTheTom
I'm looking to help out a local business set one of these up to stream live on their website. Do the cameras come with software to do this? If not, does anyone know of an inexpensive solution? Thanks for your help.
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You generally don't want to use that approach...
Most IP cameras can support a limited number of simultaneous connections. It varies, but it's usually on the order of about 5 to 20. Each connection/stream is using bandwidth from the camera and the Internet connection at the business as well.
It's not that it can't be done, but that it's really not something you'd want to do in a typical case. Usually when you *do* support live streaming in that kind of environment, you do it with a re-broadcasting server in a datacenter. The camera sends 1 stream to the broadcasting server, and that server can then produce dozens or hundreds of duplicate streams, and you are using better resources to do so.
The site that is hosting Dan's cameras is something that I put together for the kinds of purposes you're talking about. The cameras upload images at some interval, and the server produces a few things:
1) A catalog of uploaded images, going back 3-6 months typically
2) A static link to the latest image, so that on a webpage you can embed a static link and my server handles keeping that link updated with the latest image. There are also provisions that allow you to adjust the time(s) the image is updated publicly, so for example you could stop serving new images from 8PM to 9AM if you only wanted it during "business hours".
3) There is also a function to create time-lapse movies of the collected images
4) I can pull local weather data and embed that (along with pretty much any other text info) in the orange bar you see at the top of the image. It processes the uploaded image and then adds this to the top of it.
5) It keeps the public away from your private camera so that you don't end up with pranksters trying to hack the camera, change settings, or flood it with excessive connections.